I’ve been thinking up creative ways to implement the economic stimulus. Some Americans could immediately be employed to flush money down the toilet. This may require the waiving of environmental restrictions.

Another worthwhile project would be the creation of an American Pundit Hat industry. Pundit Hats will be large conical hats, similar to this fantastic Bronze Age specimen, but instead of gold they will be made out of recycled cans, and instead of being artistically decorated with astronomical symbols Pundit Hats will be inscribed with our highest truths (Diversity is Strength, The World is Flat, Yes We Can, We are the World, etc.) alongside images of our eminences (Bono, Gore, Oprah, Hugo Chavez, Obama, the ShamWow! guy, etc.).

All who opine on TV or in establishment newspapers and magazines will be required to purchase Pundit Hats and wear them whenever in public; those refusing will be banished from the pundit class. None will refuse, of course, and most will believe the hats…

Life expectancy in Zimbabwe is now the lowest in the world: 37 years for men and 34 for women. A cholera epidemic is raging. People have become ill with anthrax after eating the decaying flesh of animals that had died from the disease. Power was lost to the morgue in the capital city of Harare, leaving the corpses to rot. Most of the world is ignoring the agony of Zimbabwe, a once prosperous and medically advanced nation in southern Africa that is suffering from political and economic turmoil — and the brutality of Mugabe’s long and tyrannical reign.- Bob Herbert, celebrating Zimbabwe’s triumph over racism and reminding me why, when I hear it said "reality has a liberal bias", I think of Rhodesia.

Consider the alternatives: $150 million buys the entire population of Uganda a $5 foot long from Subway, it buys a custom perch for each of China’s 34,000 human-bird hybrids, or it buys a Boeing 767 for every single one of America’s openly Mustiphino congressmen.

I was working very hard once, doing a television drama called Sergeant Ryker, and one night after the shooting was completed, I was drinking in a San Fernando Valley bar with an assistant director. We were laughing and telling each other stories -- but this stranger kept barging in. He was just asking for it. In the past, guys I had never seen before would walk up to me in a bar and tell me that their wives really hated my guts. I'd just sneer. It was expected of me. But it would always end up in a very amicable conversation and I'd say, "Well, maybe your wife is right." So he'd say, "Nobody's that bad. I mean, you ought to know my wife." Before long, we would be buying each other a couple of drinks and laughing... But this guy in the Valley just kept baiting me. My thoughts were a million miles from him. He was fulfilling some need and, goddamn it, for some dumb, stupid reason, I helped him along. I just had to shut him up, so I hit him over the he…

In this episode, our hero visits Cambodia where he is shown around (don’t say escorted) by a former prostitute named Sina Vann. I had heard about torture chambers under the brothels but had never seen one, so a few days ago Sina took me to the red-light district here where she once was imprisoned. A brothel had been torn down, revealing a warren of dungeons underneath.How does Kristof know he’s looking at dungeons, and not some ordinary rooms? “I was in a room just like those,” she said, pointing. “There must be many girls who died in those rooms.” She grew distressed and added: “I’m cold and afraid. Tonight I won’t sleep.”Make the mark feel sympathy. “Photograph quickly,” she added, and pointed to brothels lining the street. “It’s not safe to stay here long.” Bond with the mark by creating a sense of shared danger.